King's Kung-Fu& Tai Chi

Chinese symbol for “frightful”

恐怖
kǒng bù
terrible; frightful; frightening; terror

The closest CC-CEDICT match for frightful is 恐怖 (kǒng bù), defined as: terrible; frightful; frightening; terror; terrorist.

Before using these characters for a tattoo, check them with a native speaker. Dictionary words often have several meanings, and the right choice depends on context.

Characters and stroke order

恐 kǒng
fearful, apprehensive; to fear, to dread
radical 61 ⼼ · 10 strokes
怖 bù
frightened, terrified
radical 61 ⼼ · 8 strokes

Other Chinese words for “frightful”

WordPinyinMeaning
可怕kě pàawful; dreadful

Related words

Other words that share a character with 恐怖.

WordPinyinMeaning
恐惧 (恐懼)kǒng jùfear; dread; to fear; to dread
恐怕kǒng pàfear; to dread
恐怖主义 (恐怖主義)kǒng bù zhǔ yìterrorism
反恐fǎn kǒnganti-terrorism; to fight against terrorism
恐慌kǒng huāngpanic; panicky
恐怖分子 (恐怖份子)kǒng bù fèn zǐvariant of 恐怖分子 (kǒng bù fèn zǐ)
恐怖组织 (恐怖組織)kǒng bù zǔ zhīterrorist organization
恐怖片kǒng bù piànhorror movie; measure word: 部 (bù)

See also: Japanese symbol for “frightful”.

Data: CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0); Unihan Database (Unicode License v3); Make Me a Hanzi (Arphic Public License (graphics.txt); LGPL-3.0-or-later (dictionary.txt)); wordfreq (CC BY-SA 4.0 (data)). Retrieved 2026-10-22.

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